Remembrance
by LunaMoth116
Summary: "We do not remember days, we remember moments." A series of drabbles following an unlikely pair, and an even less likely friendship. Spoilers within. Platonic F!Tabris/Alistair.
1. Meeting

_A/N: This series of drabbles is _complete. _I plan to post two new ones per day until all of them are posted._

**Disclaimer:** Dragon Age: Origins _and all its concepts and characters are the property of BioWare. I make no profit from writing or publishing this story._

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><p>"<em>We do not remember days, we remember moments. The richness of life lies in memories we have forgotten."<em>

_~ Cesare Pavese_

**Meeting**

She meets him in the middle of an argument.

She sees his snark, his spirit, his warm, easy smile.

So this is who she's supposed to fight with.

He sees her vine-patterned boots, her sly smirk, and the thin gold ring on a chain around her neck.

So this is the new recruit.

He doesn't quite know what to expect.

Neither does she.

He knows more than she, yet looks to her for guidance.

She wonders if it's a change for him, being led around by an elf instead of the opposite.

It's a long way from home to here.


	2. Wilderness

**Wilderness**

Lots of darkspawn ahead, the injured soldier warns them. Took out his entire patrol.

"Oh, I can't wait for them to taste my blade!" the elf crows gleefully, her eyes alight.

He looks at her. "Bloodthirstiness is such a charming feature, don't you agree?"

She shrugs in response. He's learned you can say a lot of things with a shrug, chief among them "I don't know" or "That's the way it is" or even "Why are you asking _me?_"

Hers says none of these things. Instead, it says, "I am who I am."

He gives a slight nod. Fair enough.


	3. Joining

**Joining**

Two deaths: one from chance, one from choice. He always knew of the possibility, but seeing it, again, reawakens cold reality.

She quietly accepts the lethal chalice.

He wonders if he can do this without her.

She raises the cup to her lips, open-eyed and unafraid.

Die here, die in battle, die back home – where and when it might happen makes little difference to her now. Regardless, it will be a sacrifice.

That kind of death is all she seeks.

She drinks without hesitation.

Though she is pronounced alive, he is still afraid to hope. Until her eyes flicker open.


	4. Chaos

**Chaos**

All around her, the roar of beasts, the clanging of blades and bucklers, the whistle of soaring arrows, the screams of the dying.

No one told her it would be like this.

As she looks around, uneasy, she hears another sound.

A tiny _snick_, also of metal against metal, as the wedding ring on her neck shifts on its chain. Her heart thuds against the slim, simple band.

She's here for someone. She's here _because_ of someone.

Resolve restored, she sees _him_ looking to her, to decide what to do next.

She admits something to herself.

She's glad he's here.


	5. Aftermath

**Aftermath**

He stares out over the swamp, trying to process a reality that was never supposed to be, turning only when he hears her emerge, alive and well.

She stands there, small and unassuming in her simple leather armor. Her expression is worn and weary, yet her eyes are inquisitively sharp.

She's all he has left.

She looks at him as she massages her throbbing temples, listening to what she is told.

He is taller than her, yet appears shrunken, sagging with tension. His splintmail is chinked in so many places, his eyes pained and pleading.

She's stuck with him now.


	6. Disturbance

**Disturbance**

He's the first one there when she tumbles from her bedroll as if thrown from a tower. She groans, mumbles something about having dreams of a horrible dragon, hideously beautiful music, monsters beyond measure.

He gives her water, tells her of the nightmares' imminent frequency. She is silent, then shakes her head dismissively. She does not fear dreaming horrors; she has lived them.

He watches her walk away, knows she is stronger than she seems. Yet part of him still wishes she didn't have to be hurt.

He's ready to kill the archdemon a hundred times over, just for that.


	7. Dreamland

**Dreamland**

He's _happy_. He's completely, sincerely happy.

She dreads the moment he realizes it's all a lie.

She shatters the illusion with just one question: How did we get here?

He finds his answer in the lack of having one, and the gears in his head grind to life. He ably, gladly fights the demons at her side.

As he shimmers away to…somewhere else, she's sighing in exasperation and wondering how he could be so _stupid _and _thick_ and – how could he just leave her like that? She _needs _him.

It's not frustration at losing authority that makes her think that.


	8. Vigilance

**Vigilance**

He's never seen her like this.

She is more than accomplished in her art. Her blades are her instruments and the battleground her stage, her sweeps and stabs as graceful a dance as the Remigold. But here, underground, she seems uncertain, still capable yet strangely vulnerable, as if she has forgotten the steps.

He feels the relentless surges of darkspawn before they come, beating down on his senses like crashing waves, crushing darkness. She is still too new.

When asked if that's what troubles her, she shakes her head.

At least in the alienage, she tells him, there is sunlight.


	9. Shadows

**Shadows**

They must stay alert in the ruins. Even the smallest shadows seem to watch them closely.

Yet they cannot help but admire the architecture, its brittle magnificence rivaling the majesty of the finest palaces.

He wonders aloud – was there a city here? Did the elves live underground?

She has no answers, staring in wide-eyed wonder at what her people once were.

She once pitied those who chose to wander. It pains her to realize, when she heard stories of her forest-bound kin, she secretly envied their freedom, their knowledge.

She looks at him, and feels their shared loss once again.


	10. Comfort

**Comfort**

"What do you mean_,_ no one can enter the alienage?"

He hears the shrill cry as he's paying a merchant.

"Getting in won't be a problem with no guard!"

He's there in a flash as she's drawing her blades, so swiftly she nearly slices his neck. She kicks, shrieks at him to put her down, but he only does so when they are a safe distance away, his arms ready to give out.

As she collapses into his chest, defeated, her screams dissolve to sobs.

"I just want to go home…"

He holds her, as her words splinter his heart.


	11. Recall

**Recall**

The void of the snow almost hides the darkspawn taint.

Yet nothing can truly suppress the grandeur of this place, or their memories.

Now, spirits haunt them when darkspawn do not hunt them. They fight to stay focused, knowing they cannot dwell. They stem the tides, in search of artifacts stolen from heroes, to pay respects to one who deserved it, even when it was doubtfully earned.

The fortress never belonged to the two of them, and never will. But they are determined that, for today, it will not be a place for barbarians.

Some things are best left behind.


	12. Sacrifice

**Sacrifice**

He meets her down on the docks.

He's amazed at the efforts she went to here, to save everyone. He wants to give her all the gold in Orlais, at the very least. But now, as the dead drift away on flaming pyres, is not the right time.

She didn't have to go to the lengths she did. She could have let some die. Yet she did not.

She, who once delighted in the kill, is wondering if it really is possible to see too much death.

She runs her fingers over the chains she wears, and has her answer.


	13. Sisters

**Sisters**

"You should have let me cut out her tongue," she grumbles as they leave his sister's home.

"Right. Because that clearly would have improved the situation."

"It would have stopped her talking."

"True. Let's just go."

Later, she tells him, tentatively, she's sorry about how that turned out.

He tells her not to apologize; what happened wasn't her fault. He still appreciates her bringing him there.

"Don't mention it. Besides, what do you need her for? You have me."

She laughs carelessly, self-consciously, and leaves.

He thinks of the blood-filled pendant he gave her, twin to his.

Yes. He does.


	14. Nicknames

**Nicknames**

"And you think we should make up a nickname because…?"

She gives him a playful look. "We're special. Unique."

"How?"

"We're the last surviving Wardens in Ferelden."

"Right. And that's most certainly a good thing. All right. Any suggestions, then?"

"I'm thinking…Tabristair," she says coyly.

"Oh, really?" he deadpans. "How long did it take you to come up with that? And why not, I don't know – Alistabris?"

She snorts. "Seriously? Say it with a straight face. It doesn't sing. It doesn't dance."

He chuckles, warmly. "But it'd still be for just us."

Her face softens slightly as she replies.

"True."


	15. Spirits

**Spirits**

Why must they answer such questions?

Why must they dwell on the past?

She answers, reluctantly, and he tries to tell her not to be so hard on herself, that he would be nowhere without her, but inside he knows he can't fault her for her regrets.

She listens to his answer, and almost resents him for wishing himself dead, but not as much as she resents herself for her own failures.

When it comes time to fight their own spirits, the symbolism is not lost on them. They force themselves to laugh afterwards about who killed the other first.


	16. Family

**Family**

It's not his wife.

It's not that he's human.

Yet there is unquestionably, unmistakably, something about the arl that makes her skin crawl and shoulders tense whenever she must speak with him.

Perhaps it's the gleam in his eye, the sharp shrewdness behind his formal speech his dewy-eyed nephew can't or won't see.

He's friendly enough, treats her as his equal - but is that because he believes he should, or feels he should?

For her friend's sake, and their mission's, she plays nice.

But every time she looks at the man, she thinks: _You let him sleep with the dogs_.


	17. Homecoming

**Homecoming**

So this is where she grew up.

It's small, but instead of cramped, it feels oddly cozy.

"It's not much," she'd said with a rueful smile, "but it's home."

Ashamed as he is, he feels a prick of jealousy as he watches her embrace her father.

He's finally seen where she comes from. To some, it seems like nothing. Yet in some ways she has so much more than he did, than many do.

He sees her hands tremble as she takes the dagger her father presents, her mother's last gift.

He fingers the amulet around his neck, and smiles.


	18. Champions

**Champions**

She did it. She actually did it.

_They _did it.

He addresses the crowd, says the words he never thought he would, takes in their applause.

When he turns to her, he sees pride and warmth, and a little contrition, in her face.

He should hate her for this, and almost does. Yet he feels slightly flattered that she deems him so worthy.

He is her king, yes, and her fellow Grey Warden.

But more importantly, she sees him as someone who can make things better.

In front of their friends, and all of Ferelden, he shines in her light.


	19. Choices

**Choices**

She enters his room when he answers her knock, swallows as he rises to meet her.

She starts to ask if they are friends, for reasons she cannot find words for.

As he stops before her, she pauses, looks away.

He sees a telltale shimmer in her wide hazel eyes, and his embrace is her answer.

She first flinches at his touch, then lets herself be held.

She wants to kill him then and there, so he might die warm and safe and loved, his soul not torn asunder.

What she could not ask of him, he will never know.


	20. Departure

**Departure**

He is the last to say goodbye, as they line up by the gates.

They began this together, but they will not end it that way. Two will go. One will return. Such is how it must be.

His plate-gloved hand is massive clasped around her small brown one.

Her gaze holds his, eyes burning like the city around them.

Their land will be safe, but with no true triumph.

He bites his lip, grips his sword, anything to keep himself from breaking down like the city they stand to defend.

That isn't how he wants her to remember him.


	21. Memorials

**Memorials**

He sees her often, in a manner of speaking.

Her elder cousin is self-reliant and sympathetic. His sister is strong-willed and smart. Her father is sensible and sensitive, his eyes mirroring his only child's in all but the color and brightness of youth.

She is part of all of them.

The home she would have returned to is nothing like the one she left behind. He both welcomes and resists every change he helps bring about, because each one is always something she would have wanted.

He knows she would be proud.

Sometimes that is the hardest burden to bear.


	22. Remembrance

**Remembrance**

They mourn her. But not as he does.

They lost a hero. He lost a sister.

He endures rather than enjoys the celebrations and ceremonies, puts on the best appearance he can for his subjects, knowing he should foster, not begrudge them, their happiness.

For years to come, he shares his grief with few, his memories with many, determined she will never be forgotten.

Nearly thirty summers after the Blight, when he feels the call of darkness like his youngest child tugging at his sleeve, the memories lose their sting.

Soon, he knows, he will have to remember no more.

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><p><em>AN: My thanks to the following:_

_Asheton, to whom all of these are dedicated. You believe in me even when I don't. I am truly privileged to be your friend. ^_^_

_Katie, who deserves a medal for sharing a roughly 14' x 11' room with me for nine months – and a few other things. ^_~_

_Stef, for regularly swapping novellas with me via courier horse, and giving my favorite description of this story, as having the color of "soft, but regal, gold". ^_^_

_My friends and family, online and off, who regularly, cheerfully put up with every one of my rants, ruminations, and rambles, as well as all my quirks, questions, and qualms._

_BioWare, for an amazing game and a fantastic universe populated by many wonderful characters, and for letting us fans borrow them time and again (though we can't always promise we'll return them on time, or in decent condition ^_~)._

_Jack Wall, for composing the absolutely beautiful piece "Reflections" for _Mass Effect 2 _(heck, while I'm at it, all the amazing music for that game and the first), which many of these drabbles were written to. (Ironic, almost, considering this is not a romance fic. ;P Somehow it doesn't surprise me that a fic for one BioWare game was written to the music of another.)_

_Sindaheri, author of the stunning _Elder Scrolls _fic "Images", which provided a great deal of inspiration for these. Even if you've never heard of _Elder Scrolls_, I highly recommend checking out "Images" (linked in my favorites) for some of the best examples of drabbles in any fandom._

_You – yes, you, for taking the time to read (and review/follow/favorite if you did as well). You are much appreciated, and I hope you enjoyed. :) 8-)_


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